Thursday, July 31, 2008

When summer gives you a bounty of vegetables, there is always this easy to assemble meal -- grilled zucchini, eggplant, red bell pepper, layered with tomato sauce, tofu ricotta (tofu, nooch, parsley, pepper), basil, Teese and lasagna noodles. Just pop it in the oven to melt the Teese (450F for 5-6 minutes) and you're good to go.

We (finally) made a batch of preserved lemons about a month ago, using the recipe in Claudia Roden's "The New Book of Middle Eastern Food," and used them for this meal.

Much like the technique used for the tofu l'orange, we vacuum-sealed the six tofu cutlets (with a slit cut in the middle for stuffing) with a mixture of the preserved lemon juice (which already has salt added) and pepper and refrigerated them for six hours.

They were pan-fried in canola oil until golden on both sides -- about 5-7 minutes on medium heat.) Then splashed with a tablespoon of tamari at the end of cooking and cooked for an additional 1-2 minutes per side.

Next they were stuffed with a mixture of chopped green olives, preserved lemons, garlic, salt and pepper and roasted in a 350F oven for 15 minutes.

The simple zucchini and balsamic idea came from watching Eric Ripert, subbing nutritional yeast for the parmesan and breaking out the 25-year-old balsamic. The couscous had currants and was molded using a small glass bowl.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Caramelized Tofu and Eggplant(adapted from the "Little Saigon" Cookbook)

1. Wash, pat dry and peel the 2 large Asian eggplants (or two smaller globe eggplants). Cut them into 1 1/2" cubes. Place the cubes in a colander and sprinkle with 3 tbs. of salt. Let stand for 20-30 minutes.

2. Rinse the salt off the eggplant cubes and pat dry. Place the cubes in a medium bowl and sprinkle with 1 tbs. of sugar.

3. Cut the package of firm tofu into large cubes. Stir-fry the tofu in a wok until golden and set aside.

4. In the wok, heat 3 tbs. of olive oil over medium heat. When hot, add the sugared eggplant and stir occasionally as the sugar cooks and begins to brown. Add one large sliced onion, four cloves of minced garlic, two anise seed pods and a pinch of salt to the eggplant. Saute for another five minutes or until browned.

5. Add the fried tofu, 1/4 cup of light soy or tamari, 1/2 (or more) of a finely diced thai bird chile (if you like the heat), 3/4 cup of coconut milk and 1 tsp. of black pepper. Mix together and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer and cover the wok, and let cook for one hour, or until the liquid has reduced to a thick sauce.

6. Garnish with Thai basil and serve with steamed rice.

We added some shiitake mushrooms and Seared/Steamed Brussel Sprouts because that's what we had...

Sunday, July 20, 2008

A quick and easy meal, sort of like stir-fry for nights when we have seitan. Carrots, onion, garlic, herbes de provence, veg stock, tamari cooked in the wok and served over pasta.

The leeks were braised. First trim the leeks, using as much of the white/light green parts as you like (the leftover bits are fantastic in making stock), and cut into 3 inch sections.

The leeks are placed in a small saute pan and filled halfway up the side of the leeks with water. Add 1 tbs. of soy margarine, and bring to a boil. Cover loosely with the lid and continue to cook until the water has just about evaporated.

Turn off heat, place the leeks in an oven-proof dish. Pour the remaining liquid out of the saute pan into the oven-proof dish. Season with salt and pepper and stick into a 350F oven for 15-20 minutes until the leeks begin to caramelize. Serve hot.

The beets were simply roasted in aluminum foil with a little olive oil at 450F for a hour, the removed from the package, peeled, sliced and seasoned.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Something a little different tonight -- we have a ton of basil growing out on the deck, but we wanted Mexican food. So we compromised and made a smokey pesto style sauce (basil, garlic, smoked paprika, pepper, olive oil) and made fajitas. The tofu was smoked with applewood, pan-fried and cut into strips, the fried a second time with the pesto. The tofu/pesto and Teese were loaded into the tortillas and finished melting on the griddle. The fajitas were topped with leftover pesto.

So, of course Mexican food and Shish Kabobs? Sure, why not! ;)

They featured a combination of tofu, red onion, red bell pepper, mushroom and kumquats -- marinated in olive oil, tamari and smoked paprika and pepper -- set on the skewers and grilled.

The corn (grilled and coated with lime, smoked paprika, and a little Teese for that Oaxacan street food look) and a side of Mexican rice.

Saute the onion for 4-5 minutes until you see a little color. Add the garlic cloves and cook for an additional 1-2 minutes. Add the Mexican oregano, smoked paprika, salt and pepper to taste.

Add the tomatoes to the onion mixture and cook on medium-low for 15 minutes until the tomatoes breaks down.

Take the tomato mixture and puree in blender, return to pan. Add red wine and cook for another 5-10 minutes to thicken. Add the seedless grapes

Meanwhile, in a separate pan (or wok) saute the extra-firm tofu with canola oil on medium heat until golden brown and delicious. Turn the heat down to low and add the tamari, cook for an additional 1 minute per side.

For serving, we tend to leave the tofu out of the tomato mixture and just pour the sauce over the tofu on the plate, rather than immerse the it in the pan. The tofu can get a little soggy, but tastes good either way ;)

Monday, July 14, 2008

I was reading "Kitchen Mysteries" by Hervé This where he described a method to infuse flavor by injecting a mixture of Cointreau, salt and pepper into food and then microwaving it to evaporate the mixture inside.

Not having a needle handy, I decided to take advantage of tofu's sponge-like nature and vacuum-seal the tofu with the cointreau mixture (1/4 cup cointreau, pinch of salt dissolved and fresh black pepper brought to a boil, then cooled).

After refrigerating it for six hours, I quickly seared the tofu cutlets in peanut oil in the wok (cut into six pieces with a slit cut in the center, rather than the standard eight pieces). With the cointreau permeating the tofu, it will scorch if you don't keep an eye on it, so rotate often. Once it's golden brown on both sides, turn the tofu down to low, and splash with a little tamari and let cook for another 1-2 minutes on both sides.

We had a little scape and onion filling leftover from the griddle cake the other night, so I used that to stuff in the pocket of the tofu.

The tofu was then placed on a sheet pan with a rack in the oven for 15 minutes at 350F to finish cooking the insides.

The final texture was almost creamy/melty inside with a nice balance of orange flavor throughout.

The griddle cakes are based on a Turkish recipe -- the filling is the part of the scapes that aren't the tips (i.e. the long green parts), onion and harissa (or tomato paste and red pepper flakes if you don't have that) cooked down for 30 minutes until caramelized... then you make a dough out of day-old bread, soaked in water, with added flour and salt. It's all processed in the vita-mix and rolled out into tortilla sized rounds. Then you add the filling and pan-fry to cook the shell. Optionally top with soy yogurt and go to town...

Process the sprouted buckwheat in a vita-mix with at least a 1/4 cup of water, put in a large mixing bowl. Process the nuts/seed with 1/4 cup of water until smooth. Add to the buckwheat. Process the rest of the ingredients, add to the bowl, mix thoroughly. It should be somewhat thick and spreadable.

Spread out on a dehydrator sheet about 1/4" thick. Dehydrate at 105F for 4-6 hours, flip and go another 4 hours.

Sunday, July 06, 2008

The eggplant was peeled, cut into long, wide and 1/4" thick slabs and smoked with hickory chips for 20 minutes. Then they were seasoned with salt and pepper, brushed with olive oil and grilled.

1/2" thick rounds of Teese were coated with seasoned flour (salt, pepper, smoked paprika), dipped in a cornstarch slurry and finally rolled around in a combo of bread crumbs and nutritional yeast. Then they were pan-fried in a 1/4" layer of peanut oil until they became golden brown and just started to melt (trust me, there's a fine line between golden brown and completely melted Teese).

The eggplant were then cut down the center and wrapped around the fried Teese.

So, after the pancakes, Liz started working on another bread that she learned from her class with Peter Reinhart -- Spent Grain Bread. It utilizes the grain that's used in the beer making process, in this case from Thirsty Dog Brewery in Akron. They were making their Old Leghumper (a porter style) yesterday, so we drove down to the brewery and picked up three one-gallon containers full of grain, or enough to make 32 loaves! (We vacuum-sealed and froze the rest). Thanks to Sue at the brewery for coordinating and the quick tour.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Step 1: cut the bottom of the stem off of the chard leaf and remove about 3/4 of the stem in the leaf. Dice the stem, blanch in acidulated water for 2-3 minutes, then add to the farro (cooked 18-20 minutes in water) mixture (plus sauteed onion, garlic, salt and pepper).

Step 2: Add the farro mixture at the bottom of the stemmed chard leaf...

Step 3: Add the fava beans on top of the farro mixture...

Step 4: Roll up the chard, strudel style

Step 5: Brush with olive oil and tamari and steam for 15 minutes, top with pine nuts

3. Links to recipes are shown when available, if there's no link, we'll try to cite the book/magazine issue from where it came. If there's no recipe cited, it usually means we made it up... and if there's nothing at all, enjoy the pretty pictures. ;)

4. We don't like ersatz food (i.e. tofu molded into the shape of a turkey for Thanksgiving), but we're funny that way.

5. A brief personal history. We were vegetarian for 7 years, and have been vegan for the last 20 years.